Two Cranky Guys Excoriate “What to Expect”

May 23, 2012

Bruce Fretts: Somehow I’ve convinced my former Two Cranky Guys blogmate Bret Watson to come out of retirement again to help me review What to Expect When You’re Expecting, based on the best-selling how-to guide to pregnancy wives always buy and husbands never read. It’s a film so execrable you’ll swear Katherine Heigl is in it. And maybe she is—we don’t know because we walked out after 40 minutes.

Bret: That was only 40 minutes? I thought it was nine months.

Bruce: Well, we’ll never know if Heigl’s in it, but everyone else in Hollywood is. It’s one of those comedies like Garry Marshall’s New Year’s Eve that pays big stars lots of money to play small parts.

Bret: This movie is seriously overcrowded. And as a date movie, it’s a powerful anti-aphrodisiac. It should be used as a recruitment film for the reduce-the-population movement.

Bruce: Unlike me, you don’t have children. Did this movie make you even more resolute in your desire not to reproduce?

Bret: Yes. I’m pregnant with evil thoughts about this movie. I feel like giving birth to a tirade about it.

Bruce: The biggest names are Cameron Diaz, who plays a Biggest Loser-type trainer knocked up by her partner (Glee‘s Matthew Morrison) on a Dancing With the Stars-esque show, and Jennifer Lopez from American Idol. What’s with all these TV references? I go to the movies to escape reality shows!

Bruce: Speaking of death, one of the characters has a miscarriage. I’m surprised they went there. Generally, comedy and miscarriages don’t mix.

Bret: Spoiler alert! The only unmarried couple in the movie is the one that suffers the miscarriage. That conveniently allows the filmmakers off the hook so they don’t have to deal with how to handle an unwanted pregnancy. This movie should’ve been aborted in development.

Bruce: Here’s another problem—unlikely casting. The doughy-faced Ben Falcone, who’s wed to his Bridesmaidscostar Melissa McCarthy in real life, is married to the much-svelter Elizabeth Banks in the movie. And his father is played by Dennis Quaid. Falcone looks more like Randy Quaid!

Bret: Now we’re playing Six Degrees of Bruce Fretts. Falcone was much shorter than his father. How often does that happen?

Bruce: I don’t know. I’ll Google it.

Bret: Right now, anyone who’s reading this blog, scroll down to the comments section and let us know if you’re shorter than your dad. And I’m talking about height.

Bruce: Quaid’s a NASCAR racer with a hot young wife, played by Battleship‘s buxom Brooklyn Decker, or as you’ve dubbed her…

Bruce: What with all the morning-sickness vomiting and babies spitting up, I’m dubbing this movie What to Expectorate When You’re Expecting. I almost did a spit-take when Chris Rock showed up as a stay-at-home dad. What was he doing here?

Bret: Picking up a paycheck.

Bruce: You couldn’t pay me enough to sit through the whole thing. We left after a discussion of circumcision…

Bret: It’s a phone conversation shown in split screen between Morrison, a half-Jewish man who’s against circumcision and is eating a donut, and Diaz, who’s pro-circumcision and eating a banana.

Bruce: Subtle! And in the spirit of the bris, I’m cutting this review off.

Bret: I see what you did there.

Did What to Expect meet your (low) expectations? Deliver us your comments!